Correlation of histomorphological pattern of cardiac amyloid deposition with amyloid type: a histological and proteomic analysis of 108 cases.

Aims: Prognostication and treatment selection for cardiac amyloidosis requires accurate amyloid typing. The aim of this study was to investigate the utility of histomorphology for predicting type.

Methods And Results: Autopsy cases with cardiac amyloidosis (1998-2010) were typed by the use of mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

Validating Community-Led Forest Biomass Assessments.

The lack of capacity to monitor forest carbon stocks in developing countries is undermining global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Involving local people in monitoring forest carbon stocks could potentially address this capacity gap. This study conducts a complete expert remeasurement of community-led biomass inventories in remote tropical forests of Papua New Guinea.

Prognostic and Bioepidemiologic Implications of Papillary Fibroelastomas.

Background: Papillary fibroelastomas (PFE) are benign neoplasms with little available outcome data.

Objectives: This study sought to describe the frequency and clinical course of patients with surgically removed PFE and echocardiographically suspected, but unoperated, PFE.

Methods: Mayo Clinic pathology and echocardiography databases (January 1, 1995, to December 31, 2010) were queried, resulting in 511 patients: group 1 (n = 185), including patients with surgically removed, histopathologically confirmed PFE; group 1a (n = 94; 51%) with PFE removed at primary surgery; and group 1b (n = 91; 49%) with PFE removal at time of another cardiac surgery.

Comparison of Buffered, Acidified Plate Antigen to Standard Serologic Tests for the Detection of Serum Antibodies to Brucella abortus in Elk (Cervus canadensis).

Brucellosis (caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus) is a zoonotic disease endemic in wild elk (Cervus canadensis) of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, US. Because livestock and humans working with elk or livestock are at risk, validated tests to detect the B. abortus antibody in elk are needed.

Generalised extreme value distributions provide a natural hypothesis for the shape of seed mass distributions.

Among co-occurring species, values for functionally important plant traits span orders of magnitude, are uni-modal, and generally positively skewed. Such data are usually log-transformed "for normality" but no convincing mechanistic explanation for a log-normal expectation exists. Here we propose a hypothesis for the distribution of seed masses based on generalised extreme value distributions (GEVs), a class of probability distributions used in climatology to characterise the impact of event magnitudes and frequencies; events that impose strong directional selection on biological traits.

Utilizing the Multiradionuclide Resolving Power of SPECT and Dual Radiolabeled Single Molecules to Assess Treatment Response of Tumors.

Purpose: Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) radionuclide pairs having distinct decay rates and different energy maxima enable simultaneous detection of dual gamma signals and real-time assessment of dynamic functional and molecular processes in vivo. Here, we report image acquisition and quantification protocols for a single molecule labeled with two different radionuclides for functional SPECT imaging.

Procedures: LS370 and LS734 were prepared using modular solid phase peptide synthesis.

Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow.

Despite constituting a widespread and significant environmental change, understanding of artificial nighttime skyglow is extremely limited. Until now, published monitoring studies have been local or regional in scope, and typically of short duration. In this first major international compilation of monitoring data we answer several key questions about skyglow properties.

Reduction in Torsional Stiffness and Strength at the Proximal Tibia as a Function of Time Since Spinal Cord Injury.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is characterized by marked bone loss and a high rate of low-energy fracture around regions of the knee. Changes in the mechanical integrity of bone after SCI are poorly defined, and a better understanding may inform approaches to prevent fractures. The purpose of this study was to quantify reductions in torsional stiffness and strength at the proximal tibia as a function of time since SCI.

Females exceed males in mercury concentrations of burbot Lota lota.

Examination of differences in contaminant concentrations between the sexes of fish, across several fish species, may show clues for important behavioral and physiological differences between the sexes. We determined whole-fish total mercury (Hg) concentrations of 25 male and 25 female adult burbot Lota lota captured in Lake Erie during summer 2011 and of 14 male and 18 female adult burbot captured in Great Slave Lake (Northwest Territories, Canada) during winter 2013. On average, females had 22 % greater Hg concentrations than males.

Coronary microvascular rarefaction and myocardial fibrosis in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Background: Characterization of myocardial structural changes in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has been hindered by the limited availability of human cardiac tissue. Cardiac hypertrophy, coronary artery disease (CAD), coronary microvascular rarefaction, and myocardial fibrosis may contribute to HFpEF pathophysiology.

Methods And Results: We identified HFpEF patients (n=124) and age-appropriate control subjects (noncardiac death, no heart failure diagnosis; n=104) who underwent autopsy.

Folate receptor-targeted multimodality imaging of ovarian cancer in a novel syngeneic mouse model.

A new transplantable ovarian tumor model is presented using a novel folate receptor (FR) positive, murine ovarian cancer cell line that emulates the human disease and induces widespread intraperitoneal (i.p.) tumors in immunocompetent mice within 4-8 weeks of implantation.

Energy expended and knee joint load accumulated when walking, running, or standing for the same amount of time.

Evidence suggests prolonged bouts of sitting are unhealthy, and some public health messages have recently recommended replacing sitting with more standing. However, the relative benefits of replacing sitting with standing compared to locomotion are not known. Specifically, the biomechanical consequences of standing compared to other sitting-alternatives like walking and running are not well known and are usually not considered in studies on sitting.

Psychological sequelae of surgery in a prospective cohort of patients from three intraoperative awareness prevention trials.

Background: Elective surgery can have long-term psychological sequelae, especially for patients who experience intraoperative awareness. However, risk factors, other than awareness, for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after surgery are poorly defined, and practical screening methods have not been applied to a broad population of surgical patients.

Methods: The Psychological Sequelae of Surgery study was a prospective cohort study of patients previously enrolled in the United States and Canada in 3 trials for the prevention of intraoperative awareness.

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) sinus tumors are associated with coinfections by potentially pathogenic bacteria in the upper respiratory tract.

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) sinus tumors are hyperplastic to neoplastic, predominantly stromal masses of the paranasal sinuses that expand the sinus lining and obstruct the sinus cavities. Obstruction of the sinus cavities and disruption of normal sinus lining anatomy may interfere with clearance of bacterial pathogens from the upper respiratory tract. To examine this possibility, we explored whether the presence of sinus tumor features (tumor score) affected the likelihood of detecting potentially pathogenic bacteria from upper respiratory sinus lining tissues in bighorn sheep.

Search for a light sterile neutrino at Daya Bay.

A search for light sterile neutrino mixing was performed with the first 217 days of data from the Daya Bay Reactor Antineutrino Experiment. The experiment's unique configuration of multiple baselines from six 2.9 GW(th) nuclear reactors to six antineutrino detectors deployed in two near (effective baselines 512 m and 561 m) and one far (1579 m) underground experimental halls makes it possible to test for oscillations to a fourth (sterile) neutrino in the 10(-3) eV(2)<|Δm(41)(2) |< 0.

Short-term bone formation is greatest within high strain regions of the human distal radius: a prospective pilot study.

Bone adaptation is understood to be driven by mechanical strains acting on the bone as a result of some mechanical stimuli. Although the strain/adaptation relation has been extensively researched using in vivo animal loading models, it has not been studied in humans,likely due to difficulties in quantifying bone strains and adaptation in living humans. Our purpose was to examine the relationship between bone strain and changes in bone mineral parameters at the local level.

The preferred walk to run transition speed in actual lunar gravity.

Quantifying the preferred transition speed (PTS) from walking to running has provided insight into the underlying mechanics of locomotion. The dynamic similarity hypothesis suggests that the PTS should occur at the same Froude number across gravitational environments. In normal Earth gravity, the PTS occurs at a Froude number of 0.

Impact of incidental amyloidosis on the prognosis of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy undergoing septal myectomy for left ventricular outflow tract obstruction.

To determine the impact of amyloid on the prognosis of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC), we reviewed outcomes of patients who underwent septal myectomy for HC from March 7, 1996, to October 9, 2012, with amyloid deposits identified in operative specimens. Amyloid subtypes were differentiated by mass spectrometry-based proteomics. The survival rate was compared with that of an age-matched population (2:1) without amyloid who underwent septal myectomy for HC.

Electrogram guidance: a method to increase the precision and diagnostic yield of endomyocardial biopsy for suspected cardiac sarcoidosis and myocarditis.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the method used to perform electrogram-guided EMB and correlate electrogram characteristics with pathological and clinical outcomes.

Background: Endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) is valuable in determining the underlying etiology of a cardiomyopathy. The sensitivity, however, for focal disorders, such as lymphocytic myocarditis and cardiac sarcoidosis (CS), is low.

Family-centered care during acute neonatal transport.

Purpose: To evaluate current transport team communication practices and identify areas for improvement from the parents' perspective. We also sought to determine whether parents perceived that they were active participants in the care of their infants during the transport process, consistent with the concepts of providing family-centered care (FCC).

Subjects: Purposeful sampling of mothers and fathers (or maternally designated support person if the father was not involved) of 25 infants who were transported for acute care to a level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) between October 1, 2012, and September 18, 2013.

Near-infrared triple-helical peptide with quenched fluorophores for optical imaging of MMP-2 and MMP-9 proteolytic activity in vivo.

The gelatinase members of the MMP family have consistently been associated with tumor invasiveness, which make them an attractive target for molecular imaging. We report new activatable proteolytic optical imaging agents that consist of triple-helical peptide (THP) conjugates, with high specificity to the gelatinases, bearing quenched cypate dyes. With quenching efficiencies up to 51%, the amplified fluorescence signal upon cypate3-THP hydrolysis by the gelatinases (kcat/KM values of 6.

Long-term changes in liana abundance and forest dynamics in undisturbed Amazonian forests.

Lianas (climbing woody vines) are important structural parasites of tropical trees and may be increasing in abundance in response to global-change drivers. We assessed long-term (-14-year) changes in liana abundance and forest dynamics within 36 1-ha permanent plots spanning -600 km2 of undisturbed rainforest in central Amazonia. Within each plot, we counted each liana stem (> or = 2 cm diameter) and measured its diameter at 1.